Jan Buijs

[2] He was born and raised in Surakarta and attended the hogere burgerschool there before moving with his family back to the Netherlands in 1908.

[3] After graduating in 1919, he was engaged on the recommendation of Ad van der Steur as assistant architect in the Department of Public Works of the municipality of Haarlem.

[2] After the Second World War, during which he suffered badly from depression,[5] his work included a number of factories, and blocks of flats in The Hague and Vlaardingen.

In his interiors, he preferred an approach reminiscent of the Bauhaus, with unadorned, modern furnishings in gleaming metal;[7] he was one of the first in the Netherlands to use Marcel Breuer steel furniture.

[10] The building inspired the design of Boston Manor tube station which open in 1934 on the London Underground, and imitates the illuminated tower.

The managing director of the company pronounced it "a building of truly impressive beauty" partly because the façade "in accordance with the stated requirements  ... has no 'ornamentation' other than an extension to be used for advertising.

[2] It was Buijs' favourite of his works, perhaps because in it he was able to explicitly articulate his viewpoint as a socialist architect by building a "cathedral of labour".

[18] This private residence built in 1935–36 is radically Objectivist in external style, with a striking interplay of rectangular forms and voids, a facade clad in yellow and grey glazed tiles, many balconies and a roof terrace, but conventional in interior layout.